Q26 Sidepod

The team decided to move the radiator to the rear of the car, using an electric fan to cool it rather than cool air from the sidepod. Thus, the sidepod now served only to increase downforce, and a new design was required.

The sidepod, shown above and designed in CATIA, is essentially a side diffuser. This design exploits the ground effect, in which the curved surface narrows and then expands at the rear. Air is accelerated through the narrow section, causing the pressure to drop and generating downforce. Air is then gradually decelerated at the rear to recover pressure without flow separation. The edge plates were used to contain airflow and reduce vortices by separating low- and high-pressure air along the sides of the car.

As this was designed early in the year, using parameters enabled variables to be adjusted for integration into the final chassis, such as ground clearance and front and rear lengths. The model was verified to be watertight in ANSA, where every edge is shared by two surfaces, and there are no gaps or overlapping geometry.